Who's Sherlock?
by Tor Raptor
Summary: Mary is somewhat enthralled with John Watson. She observes him struggling with some internal grief, and she desperately wants to help. But she can't, if she doesn't even know what caused it. Apparently the key to helping John lies in the answer to one simple question: Who's Sherlock? Post-Reichenbach.
1. Chapter 1

**I was curious about how John and Mary got together, since we're given just the barest of explanations. Obviously, if they grew that close, at some point John would have had to tell Mary about Sherlock. So... I wrote this :)**

Chapter 1:

John Watson had always been somewhat of an enigma. Mary first met him when she started her new job at the clinic. He'd been outwardly courteous, but she immediately sensed something off. He seemed… muted, like fabric that had been washed so many times its color lost all vibrancy. Nobody offered her any information about Dr. Watson beyond a description of his position, and she didn't pry for two reasons. One: she hated gossip, and two: his personal troubles were his business. Mary Morstan of all people understood that some things needed to stay secret—for everyone's benefit. But after several weeks of working with Dr. Watson in such close proximity, she couldn't help but wonder.

He was an excellent doctor; she'd learned that much from listening to patients' praises, yet he almost never spoke to his coworkers unless absolutely necessary. He progressed through the workday like an automaton, doing what needed to be done with robotic precision, and never tarrying. Mary rarely saw him eat or drink anything more than tea or coffee. On the outside, he appeared laser-focused, but upon closer observation, Mary could tell his mind was elsewhere. It was like an autopilot setting. But what could possibly have him so preoccupied?

Mary had attempted small talk on several occasions, but she'd rarely received more than a one-word answer for her troubles. The untrained eye would assume he was simply without a personality, but Mary knew better. The John Watson she saw at work every day was just a shell. She could see in his eyes the dying embers of a spark. He'd once been lively and excitable, but something had extinguished him. The only question was what. Mary couldn't resist the temptation of solving a mystery, so she set out to get John Watson to open up to her. Idle conversation wouldn't work; she'd already tried that many times. She needed to do something bigger, something that couldn't be ignored. So she asked him out.

Looking back, maybe her decision had been a bit rash, but she went through with it nonetheless. She knew his work routine by heart, and she cornered him in his office on a Thursday afternoon. The second she walked in the door, he hurriedly closed his laptop and wiped his face with the back of his hand.

"Mary," he said hoarsely. "How can I help you?" Had he been crying? His red eyes, croaky voice, and the earlier drying of his cheeks all pointed to such a conclusion, but why?

"John," she began. "I was wondering if you'd like to come to dinner with me tomorrow night." The request was forward—maybe too forward—but she probably stood a better chance if she got right to the point. Dr. Watson didn't strike her as the kind of person to busy himself with unnecessary pleasantries. After she'd made her request, he stared back at her, mouth slightly agape. Dammit, she'd moved too quickly. She hardly knew the man, and she'd just asked him on a date. Stupid decision.

"Um… I have to think about it," he stammered, tossing items into his bag in preparation to leave for the day.

"Okay. Do you think you could let me know by tomorrow afternoon?" Mary asked. He nodded hurriedly and dashed out the door. It was definitely the weirdest proposal she'd ever been a part of. She shrugged and returned to her own office to pack up. Hopefully, he'd say yes and tomorrow night would bring her some answers.

~0~

The next day, John pointedly avoided meeting Mary's gaze whenever they came across each other. This did not bode well for tonight. How could he possibly agree to go on a date with her if he wouldn't even look her in the eye? At the end of the day, she sat down at her desk, dejected, and double checked to ensure there weren't any more patients to chart. Then there was a knock at her door.

"Come in," she chimed. She glanced up and was shocked to find John Watson in her doorway.

"I'll take you up on your offer," he said bluntly. "Where are we going?"

"Well, I don't really know what you like. I thought we could decide together."

"Alright."

"I haven't lived around here all that long, so I'm not very familiar with the restaurants, but a friend of mine recommended Angelo's."

"NO," John immediately snapped. Mary was taken aback at the ferocity of his reaction. A mere dining suggestion had him sweating and breathing heavily.

"I'm sorry, do you have an allergy or something?" she inquired.

"No, it's not that. That place just has… connotations." He massaged his temples with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand, as if trying to rub away a memory.

"Okay. What do you suggest?"

"There's a decent Thai place not far from my flat, I'll text you the address and meet you there."

"Sounds good. Does 8:00 work for you?"

"Yes. See you then." John turned and swept out of the room, still panting. Mary was puzzled. What did he mean by connotations? Had he gotten food poisoning there once? Suffered a hard breakup with a previous girlfriend? She could think of no feasible explanation for a restaurant to have connotations. It made no sense. Then again, very little about John Watson _did_ make sense.

~0~

Mary met John at the place at 8:00, just as they'd planned. Getting a conversation going wasn't as difficult as she'd feared. She started on what she knew was common ground: work.

"Do you see many strange cases?" she asked.

"Most are routine, but there's always the occasional gem."

"Do you have a favorite?"

"Well, I had this one patient who presented with typical flu symptoms, mainly fatigue. I would've just sent her home, but she said this had been going on for months," he explained. "That definitely caught my attention."

"Months?"

"Yes, months. I knew that was not normal, so I delved into her history. You've probably heard the saying, 'when you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras,' but that doesn't always apply. Zebras do exist. I don't know exactly where this hunch came from, but he figured it might be something exotic. So I asked her about traveling abroad—"

Mary interrupted him: "Who's he?"

"Pardon?" John replied.

"You said that _he_ figured it might be something exotic," she repeated, emphasizing the 'he' that had confused her. Instead of answering her question, John zoned out. The expression on his face was indescribable. He appeared to be looking at something that was somehow both incredibly close and impossibly far away. Mary found herself flummoxed. Just as she was beginning to worry, he shook himself back to reality.

"I must've misspoke. _I_ figured it might be something exotic," he clarified. He was lying. Mary could spot a liar from across the room, and John was right in front of her. But why? What was he trying to cover up? Who was _he_?

Ignoring Mary's evident perplexity, John continued with his story, "I asked her about traveling abroad, and she told me she'd been hiking in the Appalachians with some family members over in America, and had contracted Lyme disease from a deer tick. I did some research, and discovered another infection often carried by deer ticks: babesiosis."

"I've never even heard of that," Mary admitted.

"Not many people have. It's quite rare, and the symptoms are often so general it's tough to diagnose. This patient had her spleen removed several years prior, and that's what allowed the infection to take hold. Anyway, that's the story I tell whenever people ask about interesting cases, both because it's so rare and because I'm rather proud of having figured it out."

"Wow, that's incredible," Mary remarked. "Almost like detective work."

Instantaneously, John's face fell. His amused smile was replaced with a quivering lip, and the slight sparkle that had ignited in his eyes vanished. Mary could almost feel the warmth of the room evaporate, to be replaced with an eerie chill. She had never seen such a drastic transformation in a person before, and it frightened her. Had she said something to shut him down? She thought she'd been careful, avoiding subjects many people found touchy, but evidently she'd accidentally stumbled upon a trigger. She looked again at John's expression, which could only be described as haunted. His gaze was fixed on some point over her shoulder, and he was mouthing words. She leaned one way and then the other to draw his gaze, but he was absolutely stolid.

"John?" she said tentatively. He blinked several times in quick succession, and then shook his head back and forth before returning his focus to Mary. "Was it something I said?"

"No, no. I just need to… um…" he stammered. "Pull yourself together." The last part was murmured under his breath, a self-reminder and not a command directed at Mary. He shook himself again, like a wet dog flinging water off itself, and returned to almost normal. There was still a look in his eyes that Mary could not pinpoint. "I'm sorry," he added.

"It's okay," Mary assured. "I just want to know if I said something that offended you, so I can avoid doing so in the future."

"It's nothing." Mary knew he was lying. There was no way all of that was for nothing. Something in her last sentence had thrown him for a loop, but she had no idea what.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

Reluctantly, Mary accepted this answer. The rest of the night was pleasant enough, but any enthusiasm John had at the beginning of their date had evaporated. He participated half-heartedly in the conversation and barely picked at his dinner. Now Mary understood why he was so skinny—she'd never seen him actually consume an adult-sized portion of anything. Mary was concerned; something obviously troubled this man deeply, and he was bottling it all up inside. That was never a good thing.

At the end of the night, they bade each other farewell and went their separate ways. Mary was no closer to finding out what was wrong with Dr. Watson, she'd only reinforced the fact that he needed help. She was no psychologist, but anyone whose mood could so suddenly turn was not one hundred percent sane. At first, this little escapade had been purely for curiosity purposes, but now Mary saw that it was more urgent than that. It pained her to see a man struggling with some internal grief unknown to her. Not only did she want to know what was wrong, she desperately wanted to help.

~0~

Throughout the next several weeks, her relationship with John progressed. They'd been on several more dates, and Mary thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them. She hoped John was having fun too, but sometimes it was difficult to tell. His smile never reached his eyes, which always remained somewhat distant no matter what the topic of conversation. However, she noticed that her presence always affected his mood positively. He wasn't generally grumpy—sulky was the word she would use if she had to choose one—but he brightened up significantly whenever she stopped by for a chat.

She'd gotten him to talk a lot more about his past life: his childhood, university days, and his time in Afghanistan, but for whatever reason he never told any recent anecdotes. It was as if he'd hopped in a time machine a few years ago and jumped to the present, for there was a very distinct gap. She tried to work in questions about that time period, but doing so subtly was incredibly difficult. "Where were you on the night of August 19th 2010," sounded far too much like an interrogation. She didn't want to grill John, she wanted him to trust her enough to tell her of his own accord.

The more she got to know him, the more Mary liked John Watson. She could now see him as more than just a male damsel in distress. It wasn't just a mother hen complex that drew her to him; he had a certain spunk that she couldn't help but be attracted to. Their relationship was no secret, the entirety of the clinic knew that they were together, and they were all very supportive. But one day she overheard a conversation between another nurse and the receptionist that piqued her curiosity even further:

"Of course I've heard about John and Mary. It's wonderful, isn't it?"

"Yes, I think she's exactly what John needs right now. He's been in a horrible funk lately."

"Well, who could blame him? We all know what happened, it was all over the papers."

"The poor dear took it so hard. I didn't think he'd ever speak again."

"Neither did I. But he's really started to come out of it now that he's spending time with Mary. I haven't seen him this content since before the whole scandal."

"Hopefully she won't turn around and break his heart. I'm not so sure he'd even survive."

"No, Mary wouldn't do that. If things go south, she'd at least let him down easy. Nobody in their right mind could be cruel to Dr. Watson, he's as innocent as a puppy."

Just as the two women walked past her, Mary dove out of sight. She hadn't been eavesdropping per se, but she didn't think they'd be too happy if they found out she'd overheard what was supposed to be a private conversation. Her brain attempted to process this new information. She now knew that some newsworthy scandal had greatly impacted John's life. Had he found himself on the wrong end of some legal issue? Endured a bitter divorce? There were just too few clues! There was no way for Mary to build a solid story on ninety five percent conjecture. There was only one reliable source for the real story: John Watson himself.

~0~

Several weeks later, John invited Mary to his flat for dinner. She'd had him over multiple times since they'd started dating, but he didn't reciprocate the invitation until now, claiming his flat was too messy for company. Upon seeing the inside, Mary knew there was no way this place had ever been at all untidy. There wasn't even enough stuff to make a mess. It was actually somewhat depressing. Typically, a person's house told their life story. That was not the case with John. Looking around, Mary didn't see a home, she saw a temporary barracks. The walls were devoid of photographs or artwork, and the furniture was incredibly minimalistic. The counters were bare, without so much as a newspaper to clutter them up. The only decoration of any sort she could find was a small Union Jack pillow tucked in the corner of the sofa.

"How long have you lived here?" she asked. She thought maybe if he'd just moved in, his belongings were still in storage or at the old flat.

"Not long," came his frustratingly vague reply. Mary was beginning to get fed up with his refusal to reveal the information she wanted. Whatever happened was clearly a huge event in his life, and he still hadn't told her after months of being together. She couldn't continue in a relationship with someone who kept secrets. She knew that was hypocritical—she'd hidden her true past from John—but that lie was for both her protection and John's. She wasn't used to being the one in the dark, and it infuriated her.

As she sat down to eat with John, she decided that her only option was to snoop. It wasn't the most morally straight solution to her problem, but it was better than asking him outright and risking him getting so upset that he kicked her out. She trusted her reconnaissance abilities enough not to get caught. So about ten minutes into dinner, she excused herself under the pretense of going to the bathroom.

Instead, she snuck into the bedroom to investigate. Just before she opened the door, remorse crept up on her and made her hesitate. Was this the right thing to do? Did she have any other choice? In the end, her thirst for answers won out. She slowly slid the door open and stepped inside. She opened the first drawer on the table by the head of the bed, and found a gun. Her internal alarm bells rang, but then she remembered John was former military. Most of them kept guns close at hand, so it wasn't than unusual. She slid that drawer closed and opened the next. A half-full bottle of Ambien. Sleeping pills? That was definitely worth noting. The bottommost drawer contained nothing more exciting than socks. Just to be sure, she rifled through them. Each pair was folded loosely and tossed in the drawer haphazardly, so she wasn't concerned about messing up any type of organizational system that would alert John to the fact someone had rifled through his things. She just needed to hurry up so that her excuse of a bathroom break was still valid.

She was just about to close the drawer when something caught her eye. Toward the back, a corner of a piece of paper stuck out from under a pair of socks. Mary quickly extricated it and turned it over in her hands. It was a photograph of John and a taller, curly-haired man. This John was smiling brighter than Mary had ever seen. She knew immediately this was what John looked like when he was truly happy. But who was the other guy, and what was his relation to John? More importantly, where was he now? Mary looked at the picture more closely, and saw marks where trails of water had dripped and dried many times. Were they tears? Did John pull this picture out of his sock drawer to cry over it? Maybe this other man was the _he_ John had referred to when he told her about the babesiosis case. From this information, she concluded that whoever the other man in the picture was, he was now dead. All that was left to figure out was the man's identity.

She returned to the table, hoping her absence hadn't been long enough to warrant suspicion. Much to her relief, John didn't even bat an eye at her late return. If her surmise was correct, the man before her had suffered a great loss. It would certainly explain the hollowness in his gaze and the barely-concealed tears occasionally shed at work. Even here in his own flat, he looked as if he didn't belong. In that moment, pity overwhelmed Mary to the point where she almost cried. But this was nothing compared to how she would eventually feel upon hearing the whole story.

~0~

Mary already knew that Angelo's restaurant was problematic. When she mentioned it that time, John had reacted viscerally. Apparently, it had "connotations." Maybe he'd met the curly-haired man there. Or maybe they'd dated and that was their favorite place. That was a trigger Mary could comprehend. But sometimes she'd say something that shut him down, and she couldn't figure out which word or phrase had caused it. She wished she knew so she could avoid upsetting him, but whenever she asked he either denied that he was distressed or insisted it was nothing she did. Mary was endlessly frustrated with his resolute refusal to admit that anything was amiss.

Another incident that puzzled her occurred when she had John over to her flat for dinner. She didn't enjoy cooking very much, so she usually turned on music to make it more bearable. That night, she'd tuned into the classical radio station. At half past seven, her doorbell rang, and she went to let John in. She opened the door, and he smiled at her briefly. Suddenly, his expression changed and he tilted his head as if listening for something. He barged past her without even a greeting and rushed into the flat.

"John, what's the matter?" she called. She closed the door and followed him into the house. He'd rushed off so quickly she couldn't even see where he went. "John?" she repeated. She found him in the living room, clutching her radio in a white-knuckled grip. "What's wrong?" she asked again. He stopped staring at the radio to glance up at her, and she saw pure defeat in his expression.

He cleared his throat and gently put the radio back on the table. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I heard violin…" the last few words were unintelligible, but Mary thought she heard something along the lines of "sounded like him."

"What about violin?" she questioned.

"It's nothing." Mary had learned long ago that whenever John said it was nothing, it was definitely something. But violin music? The list of things he reacted to just kept getting longer and more baffling. Mary wanted to question him further, but John clearly wanted to abandon the topic, so she let it slide. If John didn't want to talk about something, it was little use attempting to pry it out of him. She turned off the radio and the remainder of the night progressed without incident. In fact, they had such a good time that John decided to stay the night. It was the next morning that would finally bring Mary's mission to a close.

~0~

Mary awoke before John, so she crept into the kitchen to make her morning coffee. She reflected on the previous evening, still clueless as to why the sound of a violin had instigated such strange behavior. She recalled his face when he first heard it emanating from inside her flat. He'd looked… hopeful, as if he'd find answers by following the melodic sound of the instrument. Afterwards he'd seemed absolutely dejected.

Fifteen minutes later, John stumbled into the kitchen with a muttered "good morning." One look at him told Mary he had barely slept a wink. His hair was ruffled from tossing and turning, and the dark circles beneath his eyes made him look like he'd been sucker-punched. Then Mary remembered the bottle of sleeping pills she'd found in his bedroom, and immediately felt guilty. Of course he wouldn't think to bring them with him, he hadn't known he be staying the night. The thought of how long he'd lain awake and miserable while she slept peacefully broke her heart.

"Get any sleep?" she inquired, wanting to know if he would lie to her to protect her peace of mind.

"Yeah," he yawned, rubbing his eyes.

"Are you sure? You look knackered." Mary looked back at John, and from the expression on his face she could tell he knew he'd been found out.

"Actually, not really. It wasn't great. More of a nap. But I'm fine."

"Are you sure? Is there anything I can get you?"

"Mind if I have some of that coffee?"

"Of course." Mary took the first mug and gave it to John, putting milk, cream, and sugar on the table for him to use. She left her own mug to cool off for a minute while she went to get the morning's newspaper. It was somewhat of a ritual for her to read the front page stories; she liked to stay on top of current events.

The headline this morning was one she'd seen in several previous papers: a serial killer had struck again. This had been going on for a while now—he was on his fifth victim—and apparently the police were clueless. Either this guy was really tricky, or Scotland Yard was sadly incompetent. She glanced over the top of the paper and noticed John staring at her while he tentatively sipped his coffee.

"Do you read the news often?" she questioned, turning the page to continue the serial killer article.

"No. I find most of the stories nowadays to be… depressing," he replied, drumming his fingers against the mug. Honestly, he was one hundred percent justified. Very rarely did anything good make the news.

"Even so, you must have heard word of this murderer Scotland Yard has been trying to catch for the past month. He's now killed five people, and they're no closer to catching him than they were at the beginning."

John's response to this question had Mary bewildered: "At least an 8."

"Pardon?" She put down the paper to look at him properly, only to find tears silently rolling down his cheeks. That was it. She wasn't going to sit idly and watch him suffer anymore, she was putting her foot down. She stood up and strode over to him, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.

"John, I'm sorry, but things can't keep going on like this," Mary proclaimed. "No matter how hard you try to conceal it, it's rather obvious that something's plaguing you. I feel like I'm walking blind through a minefield sometimes, watching you plummet into despair with no idea what I did to set it off. John, I need to know what happened so I can help you."

John looked at her earnestly, still soundlessly weeping, before collapsing miserably against her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and just let him cry. She could feel every quiver as massive sobs wracked his small frame. The only discernable word she could make out through his choked mumbling was, "Sherlock." She'd never heard of it before, but logic told her it was the name of the mystery man in the photo she'd found in his sock drawer.

When John finally began to calm down, she gently lifted his head from her shoulder and ran to the other room to grab a box of tissues. Muttering a thank you, he took one and dabbed gently at his eyes. After a few deep breaths, he was composed enough to speak clearly.

"I'm sorry," were the first words out of his mouth.

"John, you have nothing to apologize for." Mary gave him another hug. "If anything, I should be sorry for upsetting you."

"It's not your fault. You didn't know."

"Should I know?"

"Well, I probably owe you an explanation. But first, I want to thank you for putting up with me even though I probably frustrated you to no end. Nobody wants to date a man who can turn into a muddled heap of sorrow at the drop of a hat."

"There's no need to thank me. It really hurts to see you like this, and I just want to know so that I can help you. But I can't help you if I don't even know what's going on.

"Mary, I'm sorry. At this point, I may be beyond help. I don't want to drag you down with me."

"That's not going to happen," Mary scolded. "However, what is going to happen is this: you're going to tell me everything, and I'm going to listen, let you cry or get angry if you need to, and I'm going to help you get through it. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now, we'll begin with something simple. Who's Sherlock?"

 **Note: This story is divided into 2 parts, the second of which will go up in a few days**


	2. Chapter 2

"First of all, nothing about Sherlock is ever simple," John remarked with a wistful smile.

"Well, you have to start somewhere. How did you meet him?"

John took a deep breath to steady himself and launched into the saga of his adventures with Sherlock. Mary learned about Mike Stamford, the flat, and how Sherlock told John his entire life story from just a sideways glance. John told her about Sherlock's passion for detective work, his hunger for puzzles to solve. He detailed all of the cases they'd solved together: the woman in pink, the Chinese drug smuggling group, the bombing victims with the false painting, the Woman with her camera phone, and the mythical demon dogs at Baskerville. Throughout his discussion of their life together, Mary could see him progressively relaxing. He was relishing in memories of a happier time, and it must have felt good to finally let it all out after he'd kept it bottled up for so long.

"It sounds like you two had a lot of fun together," Mary remarked.

"Definitely. He could be a pompous, annoying dick at times, but I still couldn't resist the temptation to follow him on his mystery-solving escapades or to chase criminals around London. I may have been just the sidekick to his genius, but I have no doubt he much preferred my company to solitude—most of the time. He—he was my best friend…" John looked on the verge of tears yet again, and Mary gave him another hug.

"It's okay. I know it hurts, but he wouldn't want you to spend the rest of your life mourning."

"You're right. He's probably yelling at me for being a sentimental idiot. But it's just so hard. Especially the way it happened, I can't help but blame myself." He pulled back from Mary's embrace, and she saw reflected in his face pure agony.

"What happened, John?" Mary finally asked the question that had been bugging her since she first met him. Beneath all her concern for his mental health was a sense of relief that her quest was coming to an end.

"Mary, I haven't been able to recount this story to anybody, not even my therapist. Every time I try to get the words out, I just become a mess of grief and self-hatred."

"You have all the time you need. We could be here all day if that's what it takes."

"Okay. As you've probably figured out by now, Sherlock—Sherlock is… dead. And honestly, there are only two people I can blame for that: Moriarty and myself. We met Moriarty a while ago; he was the ghost in the shadows of nearly every case that we encountered. He was the mastermind behind the largest criminal network in Europe, probably the world. When he finally decided to come out of hiding, nobody was prepared. He came out with a fiery bang, stealing the crown jewels with nothing more than chewing gum, a diamond, and a fire extinguisher.

"The crazy thing is, he didn't even want the jewels. He just wanted to show off. He let himself get caught, let himself be tried. He pled not guilty, but didn't offer up any evidence whatsoever. The jury found him not guilty anyway. Obviously, he'd been blackmailing them, but there was no way to prove it. And then he kidnapped the ambassador's children. Sherlock was immediately summoned to help find them.

"If I knew what it would lead to, I wouldn't have let him go."

At this point, Mary's imagination had outlined the rest of the story. She assumed that Moriarty killed Sherlock, and John felt guilty for not being there to save him. It seemed like a likely conclusion. But the truth, as she would soon learn, was actually far more heart-wrenching.

"But he went, and he was fantastic. He tracked the children down with nothing more than the scraping of a footprint. He was so excited for such a challenging case, I had to remind him to stop smiling. We found the children in an abandoned chocolate factory—they'd been eating sweets from wrappers lined with mercury. Of course, they were both immediately taken to hospital. The boy was much worse off than his sister, he didn't regain consciousness until much later. But Sherlock and I went to question the girl to see if she knew anything about her kidnapper.

"The second she caught a glimpse of Sherlock, she screamed bloody murder. I have no idea why. But some of his rivals at Scotland Yard immediately assumed it was because Sherlock was the kidnapper, and she recognized him. They had always been jealous of his cleverness. He was usually quite rude and condescending, calling them idiots all the time. But the thing is, compared to Sherlock, they were idiots. They just didn't like being constantly reminded of the fact. So when the slightest opportunity arose, they labeled him a fraud, a fake genius. And then Richard Brook came into the whole spectacle and made everything infinitely worse. This journalist that Sherlock had pissed off at the trial wrote some story about Sherlock hiring an actor to play Moriarty and staging all the crimes so that he could solve them and make himself look smart.

"Moriarty pretended to be this guy, Richard Brook, and he pretended he was just an actor. He even had authentic papers and DVDs—that's how far he went with this _lie._ " At this point, Mary could hear barely-restrained fury in John's voice. "And people believed it. That's the worst part: people believed it. Pretty much everybody except for me bought into Moriarty's lies. I've known Sherlock for years, and there was no way anybody would ever convince me that he wasn't genuine.

"And then everything started to spiral out of control. I got a call. I don't even remember who from, but someone called me to tell me that our landlady, Mrs. Hudson, had been shot and was dying. I immediately told Sherlock, but he refused to come with me. He said he was too busy. I—I called him a machine. I was so angry that he wouldn't come. He loved her like a mother, we both did. I should have known something was up, but my brain was already so overwhelmed from all the confusion that I didn't realize I'd been fooled. I raced off to see her, only to discover she was perfectly fine. Then I put two and two together and ran back to find Sherlock.

"Just as I got out of the cab at Bart's, my phone rang. It was Sherlock. I panicked, wondering what the hell was going on, and he told me to look up. He—he was on the roof, four bloody stories up." Mary knew this part was going to be incredibly hard for John, so she grabbed his hand and squeezed it comfortingly.

"I'll never get that image out of my head. He was right on the edge. I wanted to go up there and stop him, but he told me to stay put. I thought I could convince him to change his mind, literally talk him off the edge. If I'd known that I couldn't, I would have raced up there and shoved him away from the edge. But I was painfully unaware of how awful things had already become. He told me that the story of Richard Brook was true. He said wasn't a genius, he was a criminal who solved his own cases to look smart. I didn't believe him. Not for one second. When we first met, he knew all about my sister from one glance at my phone. He claimed that was fake too, that he'd researched me to impress me with his deductions, but I know that can't be true. There's no way that information was available to him.

"But his confession threw me off guard. I was so lost and confused that I didn't know what to believe anymore. At first, it was the two of us against Moriarty and the rest of the world. We both knew he was real. But now Sherlock believed the lies? I just couldn't make sense of it all. If I'd known what was coming next, I would've turned away. Because now whenever I close my eyes, and whenever I actually manage to fall asleep, I'm forced to watch this moment replay itself over and over again.

"His last words to me were: 'Goodbye John.' And then he jumped."

Mary audibly gasped in horror.

"I couldn't react fast enough. I started running, but something knocked me over and I hit my head on the street. I got up and kept running, despite knowing what I would find when I got there. Everything hurt, but whether that was from the fall or the emotional trauma I don't know. I remember approaching the small mob that had already gathered. The first thing my eyes registered was the blood on the pavement… so much blood, mixed with rainwater so it looked like even more. I tried to get closer, but the other people pushed me back. When I eventually got a hand on his wrist, there was nothing. No pulse."

"Oh John," Mary whimpered, herself about to cry as well. "That's terrible."

"The last time I spoke to him in person—his last impression of me—was me shouting at him, calling him a fucking machine." John buried his face in his hands and wept silently. Mary wiped a few stray tears off her own cheeks before leaning forward to comfort him. She couldn't imagine the agony he must feel every day. To lose your best friend was one thing, but to witness them commit suicide before your eyes was a whole new level of tragedy.

"I just wish I could go back and do it over. I know that if Mrs. Hudson was really in danger, he'd be the first one there. He once repeatedly threw a guy out of our window for hurting her. If I hadn't gone, I would have stayed with him. I could've talked him out of this. I was so _stupid_. And because I wasn't clever enough, he's dead."

Mary heard an unhealthy amount of self-loathing in his tone. If things continued at this rate, she feared John would climb to the top of that same building and throw himself off. She couldn't let that happen. The world needed men like John Watson.

"Mary, I'm sorry for laying this all on you. You probably never want to see me again now that you know I'm a walking Shakespearian tragedy."

"No, no, no. Absolutely not. John, I love you for who you are, and nothing about your past could ever change that. I would never leave you just because of some emotional baggage. Sherlock is a part of who you are, and anybody who would abandon you for that is despicable."

"Thank you. You've been fantastic. Most people know at least part of the story, it was all over the news, but they just get frustrated with me. They think I should get over it and move on with my life."

"That's not how grief works," Mary assured. "You're not supposed to get over it. You're not supposed to forget. But you're also not supposed to wallow in sorrow all the time. You are allowed to enjoy your life; it's not disrespectful to his memory."

"I know that, but he was so omnipresent that every little thing reminds me of him. Last night with the violin music, I saw _him_ playing. He played whenever he was thinking, which was often, sometimes waking me up at ungodly hours of the morning. At that murderer you mentioned—he would have been all over that case, bouncing off the walls in excitement. Even little things, like going to the store and seeing the brand of shampoo that he used. Sometimes I feel like the world is mocking me, giving me bits of Sherlock here and there just to emphasize the fact that I'll never see the whole picture again."

"John, you should try to interpret it differently. All those things that remind you of him are just ways he lives on."

"I like that philosophy. Thank you. Mary, this has been so helpful, I don't know what to say."

"You don't need to say anything, just promise me that you'll come to me if you're struggling, okay? You shouldn't have to face anything alone."

"Okay," John sighed. Mary felt a weight lifted off both of their shoulders. She'd finally found the answers to her questions, and John had finally found an outlet for his grief. After that day, things progressively improved. John gradually crept back out of his shell and regained some of the vibrancy he'd been missing. He and Mary grew close enough that they moved in together, and the picture that had hidden in John's sock drawer—the one Mary never revealed she knew about—was framed and hung on the wall of the living room.

Now that she knew the whole story, John wasn't afraid to talk to Mary about Sherlock. It was therapeutic for him, sharing stories of the detective's antics. It helped him to remember the good times. The more she heard about him, the more Mary wished she could've met this man that changed John's life. When John talked about him, he brought the detective to life. They had very little photographs beyond the one they'd framed, so Mary constructed her mental image of Sherlock based solely on that and John's anecdotes. Apparently, John could tell she wanted to know more than he could tell her.

"Mary, could you come here and watch something with me?" he inquired. Mary had absolutely no clue what was about to happen, but she wandered into the living room anyway. There, she found John inserting some DVD.

"I don't have time to watch a movie right now," she said, preparing to turn back around.

"It's not long," John assured. "I've seen it before, it's not even five minutes."

"Okay." Mary sat down on the couch. "But what exactly is it?"

"Detective Inspector Lestrade gave this to me a while ago, and I've held on to it. It's something Sherlock made for me that I think you ought to see. He missed my birthday dinner, and Lestrade forced him to film this to make up for it."

John sat down next to Mary and draped his arm across her shoulders. She braced herself for what she expected to be an emotional few minutes, but John only smiled wistfully when the face of his lost friend popped up on the screen. She wondered how many times he'd watched this just to witness Sherlock in life. The detective started talking to an off-screen Lestrade, and Mary immediately saw that he was exactly as John had always described him. He had an indescribable aura that made Mary reluctant to look away for even a second, for fear she'd miss something exciting.

Mary felt John inch ever so slightly closer to her; he knew what was coming. Sherlock moved on to the part of the video that had actually been shown, and his phrasing was eerily applicable to the current situation.

"I'm sorry I'm not there at the moment," Sherlock said sincerely. Of course he was referring to missing the dinner, but the quote could easily be interpreted differently. Sherlock _wasn't_ here at the moment, and Mary knew he'd be sorry if he'd seen John's reaction from wherever he was.

"Don't worry, I'm going to be with you again very soon," the detective concluded with an endearing wink. Hearing that was difficult, even for Mary, who'd never known him when he was alive. She couldn't imagine how John felt when he heard that line, knowing it would never happen. All in all, she was immensely glad John decided to show her this. She hoped he didn't regret sharing it with her.

~0~

On several occasions, John brought Mary along to the cemetery to visit Sherlock's grave. It was simple, but beautiful in its own right. John told her that when he'd been at his worst, he would just sit here with his gun, hopelessly inebriated, contemplating if it was worth it to continue living. Mary shuddered to think of him here, alone and depressed and in possession of a lethal weapon. With one twitch of a trigger finger, things could have ended very differently. She was infinitely grateful that he'd pulled through such a dark time.

As time passed, Mary learned many things about grief, especially pertaining to John. One would expect things to get steadily easier as each day passed, but that was not the case. The line didn't advance linearly, but peaked and dipped at random. Some days and nights were good, but many were not. There was no pattern to it that she could discern. John would just wake up inherently depressed some mornings, and there was nothing Mary could do or say to intervene. For the most part, she stayed out of his way and let him work through it on his own. The stupors rarely lasted more than twenty four hours, and occurred rarely in comparison to the good days. Mary was forced to accept them as an inevitable part of life with John.

Nights were a bit different. Mary could tell within minutes of them settling down together whether a night was to be good or bad. There were the times he'd sleep peacefully throughout the night, and there were the times he'd lie awake tossing and turning. There were times he'd report that he'd had a lovely dream based on some pleasant memory, and there were times he'd wake up drenched in sweat, screaming Sherlock's name. Those were the times Mary feared the most. She knew those were the nights his subconscious had forced him to relive that horrible day. She would hold him, whisper sweet nothings in his ear, and he'd eventually return to an exhausted sleep.

John had taken her advice to heart: some of the things that used to make him miss Sherlock instead just served as fond reminders. Mary kept track of the things that still upset him and tried her best to avoid them. She always changed the channel or hid the paper if there was any mention of interesting murders. Those were not fond reminders, they were only teases of the life Sherlock could've had if he were still here.

The day the press finally debunked the Sherlock Holmes-Moriarty story was particularly hard on John. Of course, John had been right about Sherlock all along. The detective was genuine; Moriarty had been the one to lie and deceive. Mary thought John should have felt vindicated, but things were never that simple.

"He lied to me," John told Mary. "He said he was a fake, that it was all a magic trick. But he was lying." Mary knew exactly why this made it so difficult. If Sherlock really was a fraud, then he died to escape the inevitable repercussions. But if he was genuine, it was only a matter of time before people discovered the truth and his name was cleared. He killed himself because he was desperately unhappy with his life, John and all. Hearing that news must've made John think he wasn't good enough, that his friendship with Sherlock hadn't been worth as much as he'd initially thought it was. If Sherlock valued John as much as John valued him, he wouldn't have left him so abruptly. At least, that's how John saw it. Mary saw it differently.

From what she'd learned of Sherlock's personality, Mary knew he wouldn't do something like that. In all honesty, he probably hadn't realized how much he meant to John. She had no doubt that Sherlock cared deeply about John, but he likely didn't understand just how thoroughly those feelings were reciprocated. Listening to John talk about Sherlock's quirkier traits, Mary had made her own assumptions about potential neurodivergence, and it wasn't uncommon for them to struggle to read other people emotions. The way Mary saw it, Sherlock probably thought he was liberating John from the burden he considered himself to be. If only he could see how wrong he'd been.

Eventually, they reached a point where Mary couldn't foresee any more improvement. John had come so far from the despairing, lonely man she'd first observed at work. He wasn't one hundred percent, but it was inhuman to expect him to regain full functionality after such a trauma. However, there was one thing—well, one person—that would actually bring him full circle.

~0~

Mary remembered that night vividly. Despite how close they were, Mary and John rarely mentioned the possibility of marriage. Mary knew why, and it had nothing to do with their relationship. Marriage meant a wedding, and she knew John wouldn't want a wedding if he couldn't have his best friend there. Maybe that meant it would never happen, but Mary could accept that. But that night, John had been clearly attempting to introduce a proposal, and he was being so adorably awkward about it, when the waiter with the ridiculous French accent flamboyantly interrupted him. She'll never forget the look on John's face—he probably thought he was hallucinating. She would, too, if her best friend she'd been mourning for two years suddenly popped up like that. Then she looked at him more closely and realized that their server was, indeed, a poorly-disguised version of the curly-haired man from the picture. It was a miracle. Sherlock Holmes had returned from the dead.

Mary could understand why John initially reacted with anger and bitterness. This man had taken so much away from John by forcibly removing himself from his life, and then he just reappeared as if by magic. John had been left to grieve for his best friend who had never really died, while others were in on it the whole time. He'd been effectively robbed of two years of his life, two years he would never get back. He had a right to be angry. But when John and Sherlock eventually reconciled, Mary saw what had been missing the entire time she'd known him.

Sherlock's presence amplified all of John's good qualities and muted the few bad ones. Alone, he'd been everything a woman could hope for: strong, kind-hearted, courteous, with a heart of gold. With Sherlock, he was easily the best man Mary had ever known. The transformation was truly marvelous. Sherlock was like the missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle: without it, you could still make out the picture, but having it made everything infinitely more beautiful.


End file.
